“Those who have a passion to be part of nation building and have an attitude and desire to serve the people should join the Civil Services.” 

Shri. S. Davidson Devasirvatham is a1995 batch IPS officer in Tamil Nadu cadre. He presently serves as ADGP – Technical Services. Prior to this, he held the position of Police commissioner of Madurai city and as Inspector General of Police, West Zone in Tamil Nadu.

In an exclusive interview, Shri Davidson Devasirvatham IPS shares with Marie Banu his journey as an IPS officer.

 What was your inspiration to join Indian Police Service?

I joined Loyola College at Chennai and pursued my under graduation degree in History. One of my uncle noticing my interest in current national and international affairs and social sciences motivated me to pursue the civil services examinations. 

I was active in both NCC and Volleyball at college. Seeing the bright prospects in NCC, I focused only on NCC and was selected as the Best Cadet in the state. I was adjudged the second best cadet in the NCC Republic Day camp, 1988 at New Delhi and was sent for a Youth Exchange Programme to Alberta in Canada for three months. As part of this programme, I also spent three months along with a Canadian team in a village near Coimbatore in Tamilnadu. My outlook completely changed and my personality skills were sharpened during this time. 

After graduating in History from Loyola college, I joined for Masters Degree in Sociology at JNU, New Delhi as I had already planned to take History and Sociology as my optional papers for the Civil Services Examination. In 1991, I made my first attempt in the Civil Services Examination while I was pursuing MPhil. I cleared the preliminary examination and discontinued my MPhil  course and made up my mind to pursue only Civil Services and not academics. 

I returned to Chennai and wrote the Mains examinations. I missed the Mains cut off by three marks and got very dejected on seeing the results. I did not qualify the mains in the second attempt too! Then, I decided to take a year off. My father advised me to take up a job and attempt the civil service examination again later. I wrote the Staff Selection Commission Exam for Central Excise and Customs and Income Tax and I got a job in Central Excise, Tuticorin as Inspector.

I joined duties and started preparing for my third attempt. This time, I was selected and got into Indian Police Service.  It was a big relief as I was passionate to join the Civil Services and to serve the people. 

Your initial days as an IPS officer?

I was trained in Dharmapuri and my first posting was as Subdivisional Police officer at Paramakudi. Paramakudi sub division was vulnerable to caste riots. My focus was on restoring normalcy in riot affected areas and to ensure that riots do not erupt again. It required a lot of vigil, continuous patrolling to villages, and quickly solving community issues.

When the Coimbatore bomb blast took place, I was asked if I was willing to join the new team of officers there, and I concurred. In May 1998, I joined as Assistant Commissioner of Police and later in 1999, I got promoted as Deputy Commissioner of Police, Law & Order Coimbatore City. 

After the blast and a series of incidents that had happened in late 80’s and early 90’s, the city had gone through a lot of turmoil. Hence, our job was mainly to restore normalcy and ensure communal harmony.

Mr.K. Radhakrishnan IPS of 1983 batch was then the Commissioner of Police. He handpicked a team to work towards this mission. Mr.Kannappan IPS and myself along with other officers joined the team and worked for over two years. It was a fantastic learning experience to see the way in which Mr. Radhakrishnan and Mr. Kannappan were handling the different situations in policing as I was a greenhorn in the service, with just six months as an independent officer.

In 2000, when Cuddalore witnessed a lot of caste and political violence I was posted as District Superintendent of Police (DSP). I joined  with a lot of anxiety as I was not familiar with the terrain and much of the issues here. Now, I would say that it has been the best tenure in my entire 25 years of service as it involved a lot of interaction with the public at the village level.

There was lot of positive policing as well as aggressive policing, because we had to be firm and bold on many occasions when people were mindless in committing violence, arson, assaulting people, and all that. We also took prompt and immediate action after registration of cases, and arrested a record number of people who were indulging in violence. In two years’ time, the district completely transformed and we could also put an end to the liquor issue and also the road roko culture which was very prominent here.

About your stint with Intelligence Department?

I have always considered myself to be a field oriented officer, and never thought I would get an opportunity to work in the Intelligence department. I have done about four tenures in the Intelligence department. After my Cuddalore posting, I joined as SP, Special Branch in Intelligence wing, and later as SP in Q branch. I also served as DIG Intelligence, and as IG Intelligence in 2015. It was a great opportunity to have served in different capacities in the intelligence department. 

Though, it’s more of a desk job, it is tough as it requires a lot of alertness and sharp thinking capabilities. You need to keep your eyes and ears open for information and intelligence; communicate faster to the police authorities and government. It is a difficult job, and we have done a lot of interesting operations in terms of busting small terror modules; catching rocket launchers; and handling the LTTE accused. This gave me an excellent exposure to understand and study the internal security situation. 

Your experience as Zonal Director of Narcotic Control Bureau?

 The Narcotic Control Bureau is a fantastic organisation that came into being in the late 80’s. Originally, it was under the Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue. When I joined, it was completely brought under the Ministry of Home Affairs. I was posted as the Zonal Director in Chennai, looking after the four southern states and Union Territory of Puducherry and Lakshadweep. So, you get to do a lot of operations against domestic and international drug trafficking and act against the traffickers –from collecting intelligence, registering cases, investigating and prosecuting them. I had this composite policing opportunity for five years, and even travelled to other countries to attend international seminars and conferences.

I attended a training organised by the Drug Enforcement Administration, United States for about 3 weeks in Florida and also few conferences organised by the UN. This gave me an international exposure about how drug trafficking is happening across the world and how the countries are responding to this global problem. Having served in a UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo during 2003-2004, this tenure in NCB also gave me a good exposure to international policing organisations. 

In your current portfolio as ADGP – Technical Services, what are your plans to augment usage of technology in crime prevention?

 I took charge of this department in July 2020, and there are a lot of projects which are going on, mostly with installation of CCTV camera in all police stations. We have also been procuring drones for surveillance and public order management. This project is being done in partnership with Anna University and is nearing the stage of completion.

We have been working on communication technology for police officers in the field, mostly to do with wireless communication (conversion from analog communication to digital communication). We are also procuring body-worn cameras for police personnel who are deployed in field and have been standardising all the equipment in the police stations and also district units.

Over the years, we have been procuring  a lot of equipment and gadgets to enhance policing capabilities. Now, we are looking into areas that have shortage and need our intervention so that it would enhance our investigation skills. This could be  cyber-related, security-related, audio-visual or road safety 

equipment etc. 

Your advice for aspiring civil servants?

It is a dream to begin with. Once you feel that dream, it is essential that you feel the burning desire and urge to fulfil that dream. This is priority number one!

Secondly, the number of hours we spend on studying a book differs from person to person. Some may take less time to study, but understand faster. I belong to a category that understands very slowly, as I get distracted very fast. Hence, I required 12 to 16 hours of study in a day. My friends who were academically good and focused on studies used to spend around 7 to 8 hours per day to prepare for the examination. 

So, it all depends on the quality and extent of your reading and writing abilities, because this exam is all about reading, writing skills and analytical abilities. One needs to have an in-depth study of the syllabus and previous years question papers to understand the patten of the examination. It’s also important to indulge in both extensive and intensive reading on each topic prescribed in the syllabus and gain maximum knowledge about 

each topic. 

There are many opportunities outside Civil Services today in both public and private sector. However, for those who have a passion to be part of nation building and have an attitude and desire to serve the people should aim at joining the Civil Services.